Dialogue Triumphs: "Organ replacement time is it? Well sorry Cyberman, you're going to have twice the job with me."

"My ankles are swelling up" "Cybernetic conversion will alleviate difficulty" "And no waiting list! You can see to my hip while you're at it."

"Hope is a corruption of probable outcome. It has no value."

Continuity: Light bending technology akin to that of the Philadelphia
Experiment (see: Roots and Links) is indeed similar to matter transmission
technology. The equipment stored on the HMS Batavia originated from blueprints
smuggled out of a similar (and potentially more successful) Japanese project.
Charley deduces it works by creating a dense magnetic field which is is
directed around the vessel through the ship's cabling (not bad for an Edwardian).

The Cybermen of this story are vulnerable to (and therefore wary of) gold;
they measure time in spans (and 'micro-spans'). They are the remnants of a time
squad sent into the future on a test flight — this was interrupted by a
system failure, stranding them in the Vortex until a triangulation on the
Batavia's signal allowed them to exit safely. Despite having no response to
their initial distress signal to Cyber control, they later work on new
directives through their Cyberplanner. The Cyberplanner can download its
consciousness into another body (even an unwilling recipient.) The cyber-control
signal [is] a neural worm which uses people's memories to exert its
influence over their brain. Being the conduit for a cyber-control signal causes
the deterioration of un-augmented brains. The cybernised Byron feels no pain
when his arm is torn off.

Temporal corrosion is a fungal organism which grows in the Vortex, and is a
known TARDIS killer. Under the TARDIS console there are coils of pink and blue
rope.

During her childhood Charley and her family stayed at a hotel in Ostend,
where she read Treasure Island. Inspired, she sent off hundreds of bottles with
her name and address in them from the end of the pier to drift out to sea but
none returned to her. After the Cyber ship breaks up she is stranded in the
future with a crystal set she created from the debris. She has no idea what the
TARDIS' HADS operation is.

The Doctor and Charley's numbered escape strategies include numbers seven (a
classic move involving diversion and counter-diversion), and six. The Doctor
has had a permanent suite on floor six of the Singapore Hilton since 1872 but
relinquishes it in this story. In his pockets he carries a set of handcuffs and
a primed mousetrap. It has been a long time since he performed a fireman's
lift, He refers to his age as "nine hundred" in Earth years.

Links: This story follows directly from the end of
Absolution. Storm Warning,
The Chimes of Midnight (Edith) - Charley
mentions "Cissy and Peg", her sisters. The Chase (Charley and the Doctor
discuss Daleks boarding the Marie Celeste), The Krotons (HADS), the
appearance of the Cyberplanner seems to be similar to that version in The
Invasion. The Ark in Space/The Sontaran Experiment (solar
flare activity forcing an evacuation of Earth), Memory Lane
("Uncle Jacques"); The Five Doctors "dialogue with organics has no validity",
Revenge of the Cybermen ("resistance is futile") Charley's surprised
reaction to the different Doctor paraphrases the Sixth Doctor's first words in
The Caves of Androzani, Tomb of the Cybermen ("you will be made like us")
The Macros (the real Philadelphia Experiment). Charley mentions the
events of Invaders from Mars ("Orson Welles"),
The Stones of Venice and Sword of Orion
(the Garazone System). This story leads directly into the opening scenes of The Condemned. The Doctor's meeting Sigmund Freud (assuming it is the same occasion) is referenced in Doctor Who and is therefore, presumably, one which took place before his seventh regeneration (c.f. Brotherhood of the Daleks)

Untelevised Adventures: The Doctor taught a form of hypnotism to
Sigmund Freud. The Doctor and Charley saw a form of radar-jamming device on Quaxan IV

Future History: Earth of the year 500,002 features a red sky and
boiling sea with (obviously) a very warm climate. Its population has been
evacuated due to solar flare activity.

Location: New Year's Eve 2007, 15 January 1942, the year 500,002

The Bottom Line: "How did you do that?" "Er... too many words, sorry"

In some ways, a deliberate rewriting and reversal of Storm Warning, where
Storms' Simon Murchford, a legitimate cabin boy aboard the R-101 becomes the
previously well-to-do runaway and stowaway Madeline Fairweather, passing
herself off as a merchant seaman called Simons — both of course
unwittingly exchanging identities with Charley on a doomed voyage. The ending
when it arrives is moving enough, but the story is fussy with its timelines and
tries to be too clever with multiple duplicates — some to no end (see: Goofs).
Epic, possibly, but Barnes has done much better, and Charley's best send-off is
still some stories away. The post-credits coda is a neat twist though.